CDC Claim: We shouldn’t focus so much on obesity-related deaths.
Writing in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, CDC’s Dixie
Snider argued: "We should not let the focus on deaths attributable
to obesity distract us from this serious health
issue." Echoing Snider’s comments, USA Today reported:

"The debate about the number of deaths ‘is not where
the discussion ought to be,’ says Bill Dietz, director
of the CDC’s division of nutrition and physical
activity. ‘To me, the issue is that the diseases associated
with obesity are impairing people’s quality of life and contributing
to the steady rise in medical costs.’"

The CDC has, to put it mildly, changed its tune on the importance
of obesity deaths. In March 2004, when the CDC
released the original 400,000-deaths study, agency director
Gerberding told a crowded press conference: "The fact that
more than a third of deaths in America each year are related
to smoking, poor eating habits and physical inactivity is
both tragic and unacceptable." In subsequent months, the
"obesity kills" mantra quickly became the central theme of
the agency’s public statements on obesity. Gerberding herself
used the 400,000-deaths estimate in Congressional testimony
to justify the agency’s $6.9 billion budget request. It was the
only obesity-related statistic she cited during her testimony.

An internal CDC memorandum, written by Gerberding
and other authors of the 400,000-deaths study, reveals what
the agency really thinks about the importance of measuring
obesity-related mortality:

"Although significant scientific questions remain about how
best to assess the actual causes of death, it remains a public
health priority to identify those deaths that could be prevented
or delayed substantially in the population."

CDC Claim: The science of measuring obesity-attributable deaths is still evolving.
It is of course true that science is evolving. But it’s difficult to
believe the CDC’s claim that "we’re too early in the science"
to take a position on the number of obesity-related deaths. It
didn’t have this concern when it engaged in a massive publicity
campaign surrounding the 400,000-deaths number.
At the time, the CDC chose to ignore significant problems
with that statistic. Internal CDC documents indicate that the
agency knew it was using the "wrong formula."

CDC Claim: We were merely updating an old obesity-death study,
not developing a new method of measurement.
To justify using an outdated and highly controversial methodology,
the CDC claims that it was simply updating a study
from 1993, which estimated the number of deaths from poor
diet and physical inactivity at 300,000 annually. Commenting
on the "considerable media coverage" and "letters from
some scientists about our methods and assumptions," CDC’s
Donna Stroup explained in an Institute of Medicine publication
that the 400,000-deaths study "was a classic replication
study: its methodology was largely similar to that of the earlier
study, in order to allow for comparisons of the 1990 and
2000 estimates."

But the 400,000 estimate did not use the methodology
of the 1993 paper. It relied on an entirely different
method developed in 1999 by the University of Alabama’s
David Allison. According to recently released internal
CDC documents:

"At the time this study was being conducted, the scientific
literature had several papers describing potential
bias. Following Allison et al in using an incorrect method
was not justified. From the cross-clearance, it seems as
if this bias from the wrong formula was pointed out to
the authors."

CDC Claim: This is just one study to measure
obesity-related deaths. It is not definitive.
Numerous other studies, many of which are noted later in
this report, indicate only a small relationship between obesity
and mortality.